Citing U.S. Department of Energy data, the New York Times recently reported that the solar industry employs far more Americans than wind or coal: 374,000 in solar versus 100,000 in wind and 160,000 in coal mining and coal-fired power generation. Only the natural gas sector employs more people: 398,000 workers in gas production, electricity generation, home heating and petrochemicals.
This is supposed to be a good thing, according to the Times. It shows how important solar power has become in taking people out of unemployment lines and giving them productive jobs, the paper suggests.
Indeed, the article notes, California had the highest rate of solar power jobs per capita in 2016, thanks to its “robust renewable energy standards and installation incentives” (ie, mandates and subsidies).
In reality, it’s not a good thing at all, and certainly not a positive trend. In fact, as Climate Depot and the Washington Examiner point out – citing an American Enterprise Institute study – the job numbers actually underscore how wasteful, inefficient and unproductive solar power actually is.
That is glaringly obvious when you look at the amounts of energy produced per sector. (This tally does not include electricity generated by nuclear, hydroelectric and geothermal power plants.)
* 398,000 natural gas workers = 33.8% of all electricity generated in the United States in 2016
* 160,000 coal employees = 30.4 % of total electricity
* 100,000 wind employees = 5.6% of total electricity
* 374,000 solar workers = 0.9% of total electricity
It’s even more glaring when you look at the amount of electricity generated per worker. Coal generated an incredible 7,745 megawatt-hours of electricity per worker; natural gas 3,812 MWH per worker; wind a measly 836 MWH for every employee; and solar an abysmal 98 MWH per worker.
In other words, producing the same amount of electricity requires one coal worker, two natural gas workers – 12 wind industry employees or 79 solar workers.
Even worse, whereas coal and gas electricity is cheap, affordable, and available virtually 100% of the time – wind and solar are expensive, intermittent, unreliable, and available only 15-30% of the time, on an annual basis. Wind and solar electricity is there when it’s there, not necessarily when you need it.
In truth, about the only thing solar and wind companies do well is collect billions of dollars in subsidies from taxpayers and billions of dollars in much higher electricity rates from consumers. And when you look at the overall picture, solar and wind power generation is far worse than this.
Land. Wind and solar require vastly more acreage. Modern coal or gas-fired power plants use roughly 300 acres to generate 600 megawatts nearly 100% of the time. The 600-MW Fowler Ridge wind farm in Indiana covers 50,000 acres and generates electricity about 20% of the year. Nevada’s Nellis Air Force Base solar panels generate a trivial 14 MW 22% of the time from 140 acres; getting 600 MW 22% of the time from such panels would require 6,000 acres.
Backup power. Because wind and solar power generation is random and intermittent, it must be backed up by reliable coal or gas power plants that actually do 80% of the work. So we must build both renewable systems and fossil fuel systems.
Transmission lines. Coal, gas and nuclear plants can be located just a few miles from cities. Wind and solar facilities are often 100-200 miles from cities, and thus require ultra-long transmission lines.
Raw materials. All those wind turbines, solar panels, backup power plants and transmission lines require huge amounts of concrete, steel, copper, fiberglass, rare earth metals and other resources. Ores must be dug out of the ground, processed into usable raw materials, and turned into finished components.
If we relied just on coal and gas power, we wouldn’t need all the land and raw materials (and energy to process them) required for hundreds of wind turbines and thousands of solar panels.
Environmental and human rights impacts. The United States has essentially banned mining for rare earth and other metals, so we import them from other countries. Rare earth metals for wind turbines and solar panels come from the Baotou region of China/Mongolia, where environmental and worker health and safety standards and conditions are horrendous – leaving sick workers and ecological degradation.
High electricity costs. Even with all the hidden taxpayer subsidies, electricity from wind and solar is typically twice as expensive as from conventional sources. That affects family and business budgets. Energy-intensive hospitals and factories face soaring energy cost increases that result in layoffs and plant closures. Studies in Britain, Germany and Spain found that every wind and solar job created resulted in two to four jobs lost in other sectors of the economy that must buy expensive wind or solar electricity.
Wildlife and habitats. Solar panels blanket vast acreage, preventing plants from growing under them and reducing wildlife habitats and populations. Wind turbines are notorious for killing eagles, hawks, other birds and bats – though the actual death tolls are hidden by wind companies and government agencies, which also exempt Big Wind companies from endangered species and other wildlife protection laws.
Climate change. Once we factor in the redundant energy systems, long transmission lines, raw materials required to build all of them, and energy required for mining, processing, manufacturing, transportation, construction and maintenance, wind and solar bring no reductions in carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, even if these gases now drive climate change (which they don’t), wind and solar bring no climate benefits. They are all pain, for no gain.
Even with all of this special treatment, Suniva just became the latest solar company to file for bankruptcy. And now it says it and other U.S. solar companies will totally disappear unless the government immediately imposes tariffs on all solar cells and modules imported from anywhere outside the USA.
Wind and solar are simply a bad deal for consumers, workers and the environment.
Generating power using treadmills would create even more jobs to energy sector. ;-)
Rent treadmills to inmates to generate electricity. First income goes to pay treadmill rent, next for victim compensation, next goes to pay for jail costs. Anything left goes for food.
I look at huge solar farms as hot spots and dangerous, if they can cook a living creature flying above them, then they must be having a impact on the surrounding air and atmosphere..There is a unsuitable storage becoming available for massive KW reserve, this more heat, explosive conditions and a disposal problem….I am not real impressed with the home battery back up, cost, size and life expectancy are in my list but I do think this smaller use of solar is more versatile and useful..new products and installation are now becoming worthwhile and maybe it’s time to make this a optional item on new home purchase….
Wind and solar have negative value. All they do is disrupt the grid.
Plus, by the government favoring them with subsidies and other benefits (ultimately funded by the taxpayer or national debt) they withdraw capital, people, land and other resources from more productive activities. This, along with higher costs of production due to higher energy costs, makes us less competitive in a world economy. Spain found out how disastrous this can be by going whole hog into solar which seriously damaged its economy.
The left in the USA believes that somehow we know how to implement an economically non-viable strategy better and make it work to actual national advantage. These, not coincidentally, often are the same people who still believe that communism is great (even though it conflicts with human nature) and just has never been done correctly. But, they know how to do it right.
A crucial point is that wind and solar are helping in nothing to curb CO2 emissions even after trillions of dollars spent. The public, taxpayers, should be alerted about this fact.
Trillions?
“$2 trillion invested globally into renewables and the energy contribution is almost nothing.”
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DBXAQaDUIAEobp4.jpg
No trillions there. I call fake news.
Just google it, if you do a search you will realize billions and billions invested on wind/solar placebos that resulted in almost nothing in terms of CO2 reduction; some reductions was mainly due to replacement of coal by natural gas/fracking.
“Ivanpah solar plant, built to limit greenhouse gases, is burning more natural gas”
http://www.pe.com/articles/plant-823670-gas-ivanpah.html
Ok. FYI a trillion is a thousand billions.
“Basically, what McKinsey is saying that Energiewende is a 500 Billion Euro disaster.”
“Germany has shown that the more renewable you put does not relate to reduction of CO2 emission in fact it has the opposite effect which is as also shown in California.”
“…German electricity is consider among the dirtiest in Europe not only that but to make thing much worse in the past 5 years after the implementation of Energiewende, German electricity tariff has double making it the most expensive in Europe and is not affordable to some German.”
“In fact, Nuclear produces more than 60% of zero carbon electricity in the world.”
“So in the end, if the discussion on climate change does not include Nuclear on the table then the Billion Dollar Question is: are they seriously want to fight climate change or just being anti-nuclear ?”
https://medium.com/@bobsoelaimaneffendi/climate-change-losing-sight-of-the-real-target-a73df53d5e1e
I am pro-nuke. And I understand that Germany’s implementation of wind power may have been a bungle. If the 500 B euro figure is correct, then it does seem likely that at least a trillion dollars has been put into renewables, and 2 trillion looks more believable.
Great article showing how ridiculously inefficient Solar is. However there is a slight arithmetic mistake in the Wind calculation. Based on 4,080,000,000 megawatt-hours (total US generation) wind generated 2,285 MWh per worker, not 836 MWh per worker. But it doesn’t change the basic point of the article.
The costs of solar are mostly front-loaded and labor intensive, and in most cases we are still in the development/construction stage. So, just looking at labor at this point in time gives a highly distorted picture of anticipated solar costs.
Is there any information about the cost overruns of nuclear plants, as to why it seems to be almost every project? If this is wasted money then who is responsible, issues like that.